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Moral Anxiety in the 'Land of the Pure': Popular Justice and Anti

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Moral Anxiety in the 'Land of the Pure': Popular Justice and Anti Moral Anxiety in the ‘Land of the Pure’: Popular Justice and Anti-Blasphemy Violence in Pakistan Sana Ashraf February 2019 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University © Copyright by Sana Ashraf 2019 All Rights Reserved Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. Sana Ashraf February 2019 ii For Mashal Khan and many others who have lost their lives after being accused of blasphemy… iii Acknowledgements I owe my thanks to many people who have contributed to this thesis, not all of whom can be listed here. Particular thanks go to my primary supervisor, Dr. Patrick Guinness, who has been remarkably supportive throughout my PhD journey. From reading my drafts promptly, to giving me constant, constructive feedback, he has been an incredible mentor. He pushed me to think critically about every aspect of this work and has offered endless theoretical and analytical insights that have shaped this thesis. His vast knowledge of modern states, social movements, and conflict in societies has significantly enriched my understanding of my research topic. The rest of my supervisory panel— Prof. Francesca Merlan, Prof. Chris Gregory and Dr. Joyce Das—have also shared their expertise and provided critical comments to refine my thesis. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from all of them and improve my work under their guidance. Any faults and inadequacies remaining are entirely my own. This thesis would not have been possible without the trust of the people who shared their lives and experiences with me. Many of these people cannot be identified but have my absolute gratitude; I am eternally indebted to them. Many organisations and individuals facilitated my access to the research participants and archival materials. In particular, I would like to thank Engage Pakistan, Pakistan for All, Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement Pakistan (CLAAS), Centre for Justice and Peace (CJP), and Voice Society Pakistan for their cooperation. I would specifically like to mention Joseph Francis, Peter Jacob, and Napoleon Qayyum for their unending support. I would further like to acknowledge the assistance of the lawyers from both sides who generously let me study their cases and interact with their clients. Additionally, several people at my Alma Mater, LUMS, have aided my research by providing patronage, support and facilities. I am grateful to all of them. The process of writing this thesis was made bearable (and sometimes even enjoyable) by my colleagues and friends at the Australian National University and beyond. The Anthropology thesis writing group was a source of moral support and intellectual enhancement throughout 2017. Dr. Caroline Schuster, the convener of our thesis writing group, provided immense encouragement and invaluable mentorship to kickstart the long journey of writing this thesis. Over the past two years, I have been a part of many other writing groups that made writing on evenings, and even weekends, fun in a positive community environment. I would especially like to thank my constant writing companions and affectionate friends—Lina Koleilat and Joowhee Lee—for enriching my PhD journey with their love and care. I would also like to thank my friends: Aqsa Anwer, Areeba Nabeel, Farhana Bashar, Becky Gidley, Bec Heland, Rosita Armytage, and Bruma Rios, who have been constant pillars iv of support over the past few years of my life. I am thankful to them all for having been there for me whenever I needed them and for keeping me sane. In the end, I would like to thank my family and my partner for their unshaking faith and confidence in me even when I was steeped in self-doubt and could not see myself ever crossing the finish line. My parents and my siblings have stood by my side (and put up with me) while I prioritised my thesis over their important life events. It was their trust and unconditional love that kept me going. I can never thank my parents enough for encouraging me to follow my dreams even in face of criticism from the people around them who deemed my pursuit of a PhD a useless venture. My parents defended my right to study as much as I wanted to, in a society where most other people wanted to see me fulfil my ‘womanly’ duties of marrying and having a family instead. I cannot possibly overstate my parents’ contributions in making this thesis possible. Finally, I owe infinite gratitude to my partner, William Baldwinson, who has played multiple roles in bringing this thesis to a fruition. In addition to providing unrelenting emotional support, he has read and edited several drafts of my thesis chapters, helped me get through mind blocks by patiently listening to me, and advising me on how to organise and structure my ideas. I could not have asked for a better companion through the most crucial years of my PhD life. v Abstract In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed incidents such as lynching of a student on a university campus, torching of a Christian couple alive, attacks on entire neighbourhoods by angry mobs, and assassination of a governor upon allegations of blasphemy. This thesis begins with the premise that the anti-blasphemy violence is meaningful political action and locates it within the wider socio-cultural and historical context of Pakistan. I argue in this thesis that blasphemy accusations and the violence that often follows them are an outcome of the wider concern for maintaining purity at the national, communal, and individual levels. The creation and the consolidation of the state of Pakistan has popularised certain ideas of national identity based on an imagined homogenous community defined by its purity. At the local level, the national identity is interpreted within specifically local cultural notions of sexual, ancestral, communal and religious purity. At an individual level, the concern for the purity of the self and the society has led to widespread moral and existential anxieties. It is within the context of these anxieties concerning the purity of the nation, the community, and the self that the blasphemy accusations gain traction. By focusing on the inter-personal relationships between the accused and the accusers, this thesis contends that the accusations are triggered by perceived transgressions of social hierarchies and religio-cultural notions of purity among people known to each other. Through ethnographic examples, I demonstrate that most accusations are simultaneously motivated by religio-cultural ideals, emotions, and personal rivalries. However, once the blasphemy accusations have been made, regardless of the initial motives of the accusers, they quickly escalate into a shared religious concern inciting passionate responses from a much wider audience of believers living with anxieties concerning their faith, their religio-national identity, and the purity of their society. To the mobilised crowds, the accused becomes a symbolic figure, ‘the impure other’ who threatens the national, communal, and individual purity. The violent punishment of ‘the impure other’ that follows is however not inevitable; rather it is orchestrated and enabled by various actors motivated by both reason and passion. Some of these actors are key proponents of ideas of popular justice. By promoting non-state punishments of alleged blasphemers, the agents of popular justice contest the state’s sole vi authority over legitimate violence and its sovereignty in representing Islamic ideals. The thesis analyses blasphemy-related violence as political contestation through which the state’s interpretation and implementation of justice is challenged by those competing with the state in the shared religio-political sphere. The state and non-state proponents of justice draw upon the same sources of legitimacy and sovereignty in claiming to represent Islamic principles of justice. Consequently, the assertions by proponents of non-state violence become enshrined in the state’s foundations and its laws. This thesis thus reworks accepted analytical dichotomies of reason/emotion, culture/religion, traditional/Western, state/non-state and legal/extra-legal to extend our understanding of the upsurge of blasphemy related violence in Pakistan. vii List of Abbreviations AIML All India Muslim League FIR First Information Report JI Jamaat-e-Islami KNLF Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Lawyers’ Forum PAT Pakistan Awami Tehreek PPC Pakistan Penal Code TLP Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan viii Table of Contents Declaration -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ii Acknowledgements ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iv Abstract ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- vi List of Abbreviations ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ viii Table of Contents ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ix List of Tables ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- xi List of Figures ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------xii Chapter 1 - Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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